


No She Don't Mess Around

by blanchtt



Series: Made For Love [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:04:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9979664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: Old Sarah would have smashed and grabbed, would have taken what she wanted and not looked back. New Sarah, who Sarah still isn’t sure she really likes, only smiles, takes Shay’s hand, shakes, and sits down, joins her and Cosima at the table where she’s managed to run into them at some stupid restaurant because Cosima asks her to and she has never been able to say no to Cosima.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [herwhiteknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/herwhiteknight/gifts), [meatheadinthecraftroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meatheadinthecraftroom/gifts).



 

 

 

Cosima’s new girlfriend is an angel.

 

Old Sarah would have smashed and grabbed, would have taken what she wanted and not looked back. New Sarah, who Sarah still isn’t sure she really likes, only smiles, takes Shay’s hand, shakes, and sits down, joins her and Cosima at the table where she’s managed to run into them at some stupid restaurant because Cosima asks her to and she has _never_ been able to say no to Cosima.

 

She’d heard about her and in theory Shay sounded like a decent enough person. Sarah grits her teeth, because now, in real life, she can see that Shay is not only beautiful and feminine and blonde but, worst of all, _nice_. And with her it manages to come across as totally sincere, so New Sarah can’t help but be polite, too. Neither of them seem put-off that a random acquaintance of Cosima’s is joining them for brunch and so what can she do except roll with it and order something too?

 

And of course Cosima leaves mid-meal – “Oh, shit. Scott spilled something at the lab and he’s, like, freaking out. Do you mind?” – which, what the fuck, Cos. And so now New Sarah sits across a table from Cosima’s girlfriend, wondering at what point it’s appropriate to stand up and say goodbyes and hightail it the fuck back home where she doesn’t have to think about Cosima and Shay and all the fun shit they get to do together that she’s always been too much of fuck-up to have.

 

Shay’s the first one to break the silence, smiling softly as she pushes around a bit of melon rind on her plate with a fork. “Does she usually leave mid-date?” she asks, and Sarah snorts.

 

“No, it’s a first for me, too,” Sarah replies, letting a half-smile seep into it, and watches Shay relax a bit. After a moment, Sarah slumps back hard in her chair and crosses her arms because Cosima’s lab is just down the street and she might really not be gone that long. If she’s getting a free breakfast out of it, who is she to complain? She’s never paid for a meal, just like Cosima's never paid for her weed. “And we didn’t date,” Sarah adds, voice studiedly neutral as she watches Shay.

 

“I’m sorry. I assumed,” Shay says, and Sarah shrugs, looks away and sniffs roughly.

 

“It was never gonna happen,” Sarah says gruffly.

 

She’d turned her life around largely – yeah, she knows it’s not the best way to do it, but fuck off, yeah? – because of Cosima. She’d been on a downward streak of doing stupider and stupider shit, been on the verge of losing Felix’s trust entirely and Kira forever. And then some serendipitous meeting with Cosima at a clinic had moved her love-struck ass into getting cleaned up, getting out and getting a job, and making amends with Mrs. S and Fe and, best of all, Kira.

 

There were a million and one reasons it shouldn’t have worked out between them from the beginning, but the only one that’d stood in her way was Cosima, the press of her lips into a thin line, the thought on her face, and then, finally, the shake of her head, dreds swinging, as she’s said, _Not to tell you what to do with your life, Sarah, but I don’t think this is the right time for this._

 

And Shay looks at her, expression largely unreadable, and Sarah bites her tongue, scowls, thinks to herself, _Well, fuck, why don’t you just come out and tell her you’ve still got the hots for her girlfriend while you’re at it, because you might as well just have._

 

“Don’t be so quick to count yourself out,” Shay says finally after a very thick silence, and when the words register, Sarah almost actually lets her mouth drop open.

 

Old Sarah would have taken that and fucking _run_ with it. But New Sarah, that stupid twat, feels the victory dulled by the way that Shay says it – with acceptance, but shoulders slumped loose, an irrepressible hint of very human resignation to it that all the meditation and mantras in the world can’t wish away.

 

Somehow, instead of texting Felix in excitement, instead of finding Cosima and kissing her breathless, Sarah slumps down further in her chair, confused by the bizarre feeling of wanting to comfort Shay. Maybe it’s something about having been in her position before, meeting the right person at the wrong time.

 

“Hey, well,” Sarah says, offering Shay a shrug and a smile, because _feelings_ and _talking_ aren’t really her thing but commiserating definitely is. “Same to you.”

 

 

-

 

 

She has her own place, but it’s tiny and cramped and she’s in no mood to spend the rest of the sunny Saturday afternoon in a closet alone with her thoughts. Felix pours another glass of wine, corks the bottle, sets it down, and brings both glasses over to the couch. “How do you manage to always be in the middle of the most _complicated_ lesbian shit, Sarah?” he asks, sounding much too amused as he takes a seat in the chair next to her.

 

Sarah toes off her combat boots, laces already undone, and takes a glass. It’s not her usual drink, but she’s not going to say no to alcohol, especially right now. It’s early, but whatever. “Fuck if I know, Fe,” she replies, reaching up with her free hand to rub at a temple. “ _Fuck_ if I know.” She puts down the glass on the coffee table, groaning. “Shit. How do I go in there and knowingly fuck it all up for them both?”

 

“Well, it sounds like it’s already fucked up,” Felix says sternly, pointing at her as if to drive the point home. “And it’s not your fault, alright?” And, yeah. That’s kind of true. Sarah sits back, nods once and watches Felix take a sip, thinking before speaking again. “But you know what would fix this?”

 

Sarah laughs, shaking her head. The tried and true Felix solution to everything is to have it all. “Don’t even _think_ it, Fe,” she warns, and Felix raises his free hand, holds it in a way as if to say _you wound me, Sarah_.

 

“Believe me, I’d rather not,” he says tartly, and Sarah considers reaching out, grabbing one of his decorative throw pillows and chucking it at his head just to see him spill his wine on his new cashmere sweater. “But it’s your loss.”

 

"Yeah, I don't see that being a loss for me," she shoots back.

 

But those words follow her throughout the rest of the day, _your loss_ a constant refrain. She sits on her bed after dinner, toys with the phone in her hand, scrolls through her Instagram feed and instinctively favorites Cosima’s newest photo – her and Shay at a farmer’s market, buying some huge-ass cabbage or something.

 

“Aw, fuck,” Sarah mutters, tossing her phone to the edge of her bed and diving under the covers. She shifts and turns, tries to get comfortable, and closes her eyes. How can _she_ be losing anything by going after the one thing she’s wanted to do for months?

 

 

-

 

 

It takes her two days to think about what to do next. Blame New Sarah.

 

The most responsible thing to do is to speak with Cosima, to be honest and open and discuss what the hell Shay meant and where to go with that. There’s no getting around that she’s learned this little fact from Shay. But if the two of them have lasted this long without that fact breaking them up and Shay spoke so openly about it, then it must be fair game for discussion, especially since now it involves her.

 

Sarah walks up the three flights to Cosima’s apartment, stops outside in the hallway and straightens her jacket, reaches up to run a hand through her hair and tame it a bit before stepping forward, walking up to the door and knocking. The door opens after a moment, and Sarah’s met with big blue eyes half-hidden by blonde bangs, an unsurprised look from Shay, and a smile.

 

“She just ran out to pick something up from her mom’s,” Shay offers, opening the door, and Sarah wobbles at the entry, wonders if she’s really just meant to follow Shay into Cosima’s apartment like she’s nothing more than an old friend and not a potential flame. “Please,” Shay calls from somewhere inside, realizing that Sarah's not following, and so Sarah finally takes a step forward, finds Shay in the kitchen cutting something up with scary, chef-like speed. “Can I get you anything?”

 

“Um. No,” Sarah finally mumbles, slumping down onto the edge of Cosima’s chic couch. “I’ll just wait for her here, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Make yourself comfortable,” Shay says. There’s silence as she scoops up whatever she’s doing, tosses it in a blender, and turns it on before pouring it in a cup and, surprisingly, walking over to take a seat on the couch next to her.

 

“Can I ask why you and Cosima would have never worked out?” Shay asks bluntly, wording careful, though, and Sarah wonders why, instead of feeling inadequate next to dainty, pretty Shay, she feels instead like she’s sitting with a friend. It’s fucking _weird_ , but strangely not a bad thing. She's already in this deep - why the hell not?

 

“I don’t actually know if we would or wouldn’t have, really,” Sarah admits, and suddenly wishes she had asked for a glass of water or something just to give herself something to hold, to look at, to focus on. Instead she looks sideways, catches Shay’s careful gaze devoid of pity or scrutiny, only interest. Sarah clears her throat, drums her fingers against her thigh and adds, “The timing was bad. I was getting my shit together when I met her, and she couldn’t just wait for me to do that, yeah? So she moved on, rightly so, and here we are.”

 

Shay nods, looks away and at her smoothie before bringing it up to her lips for a sip. “Cosima’s said your name before,” she says finally, setting her drink down on the side table, and that flight-or-fight instinct in her, so hard to quell, almost makes Sarah wonder if, in Helena’s words, this is where the _now we fight_ part comes in. But that’s stupid, because Shay breathes in deeply, looks at her again, and adds, “In her sleep.”

 

Which, ouch. Sarah tries to think of something to say – _sorry_ doesn’t really cut it, and besides it’s nothing she can really apologize for anyway – but can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound stupid, and so ends up saying nothing. In the silence between them, Sarah's aware of the open window, the sounds of light traffic outside and the softest of breezes and the light spilling into the room, and knows this can only be Shay's doing. Cosima, a workaholic, hardly has the time to take care of her apartment, let alone a willingness to.

 

“I thought it would hurt more, meeting you,” Shay adds softly, and Sarah wonders what level of nirvana or whatever that Shay’s attained, because she’s most certainly not big enough to admit the same thing. It’d hurt like hell to learn about her, to see them in selfies, to run into the two of them. But suffering in Cosima’s presence was better than suffering out of it, and so she’d soldiered through. Shay turns a little, and Sarah shifts, faces her just a little as Shay leans forward, elbows on her knees and chin propped on her hands, the total opposite of her. “But it didn’t, even knowing everything I did.” Shay smiles, lets out a little breath of a laugh, and asks, “Isn’t that silly?”

 

“No,” Sarah says immediately, because as much as she’d wanted to hate her from the moment she’d heard her name, from the moment she’d seen her in some stupid picture, from the moment Shay shook her hand and offered to have her join them for brunch, she’d felt the same way. “You’re very hard not to like,” Sarah admits with a loud sigh, fakes like it’s begrudging and adds a roll of her eyes, feels something like relief wash over her as Shay laughs again.

 

The most responsible thing to do is to speak with Cosima, to be honest and open and discuss what the hell Shay meant and where to go with that. What she gets is Cosima still gone, perpetually late to her own life, and Shay sliding closer, their thighs brushing, and, hell, Cosima’s got decent taste and Old Sarah’s not dead just yet, okay?

 

“Cos knows about this, right?” Sarah asks, because she’s not a _total_ dick, and Shay nods an affirmative as she leans in, sighs in pleasure as Sarah cups the curve of her jaw, hardly needing to urge her closer.

 

“It’s her dream come true,” Shay says with a hint of amusement, lips brushing against Sarah’s own as she speaks, teasing. “Although if she’s not back soon, she’s going to miss it.”

 

Any insecurity, any resentment all falls away instantly, almost makes Sarah laugh as Shay kisses her properly, somehow manages to slide sneakily graceful onto her lap at the same time, straddling her, and yeah, she can see what Felix means, understands how she and Cosima, how Shay and Cosima, how she and Shay, get along so well.

 

“But you want it too, right?” Sarah asks once more, angling away from their kiss to speak, because her fingertips skim up Shay’s thighs, stopping short just under the hem of her dress and if it's just for Cosima's sake then this is a giant clusterfuck of a mistake.

 

But Shay rocks impatiently against her, breathes, _"Yeah,"_  like she means it, and so Sarah grins, keeps going and slips hands palms-down under fabric and squeezes, because that’s all the encouragement she needs.

 

 

 


End file.
